An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Importance of town life.

93. It is hardly necessary to point out that the gradual reappearance of town life in western Europe is of the greatest interest to the student of history. The cities had been the centers of Greek and Roman civilization, and in our own time they dominate the life, culture, and business enterprise of the world. Were they to disappear, our whole life, even in the country, would necessarily undergo a profound change and tend to become primitive again like that of the age of Charlemagne.

Origin of the mediæval towns.

Compactness of a mediæval town.

A great part of the mediæval towns, of which we begin to have some scanty records about the year 1000, appear to have originated on the manors of feudal lords or about a monastery or castle. The French name for town, ville, is derived from vill, the name of the manor. The need of protection was probably the usual reason for establishing a town with a wall about it, so that the neighboring country people might find safety in it when attacked. The way in which a mediæval town was built seems to justify this conclusion. It was generally crowded and compact compared with its more luxurious Roman predecessors. Aside from the market place there were few or no open spaces. There were no amphitheaters or public baths as in the Roman cities. The streets were often mere alleys over which the jutting stories of the high houses almost met. The high, thick wall that surrounded it prevented its extending easily and rapidly as our cities do nowadays.

Townsmen originally serfs.

All towns outside of Italy were evidently small in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and, like the manors on which they had grown up, they had little commerce as yet with the outside world. They produced almost all that their inhabitants needed except the farm products which came from the neighboring country. There was likely to be little expansion so long as the town remained under the absolute control of the lord or monastery upon whose land it was situated. The townspeople were scarcely more than serfs, in spite of the fact that they lived within a wall and engaged in industry instead of farming. They had to pay irritating dues to their lord, just as if they had still formed a farming community. The emancipation of the townsmen from their lords and the establishment of a suitable form of government for their town were necessary preliminaries to the free development of town life.

Increase of trade promotes the growth of the towns.

With the increase of trade came the longing for this freedom. For when new and attractive commodities began to be brought from the East and the South, the people of the towns were encouraged to produce goods with the idea of exchanging them at some neighboring fair for the products of distant lands. But no sooner did the townsmen begin to engage in manufacturing and to enter into relations with the outside world, than they became conscious that they were greatly hampered by their half-servile condition and were subject to exactions and restrictions which would render progress impossible. Consequently during the twelfth century there were many insurrections of the towns against their lords and a general demand that the lords should grant the townsmen charters in which the rights of both parties should be definitely stated.